Ethan Hawke Quotes

One of the things that's really lousy about making movies is that you have such little interaction with your audience.

Everything is so finite but that's what makes our time and specific moments so important.

My job - and it's really true - is that it's constantly evolving and changing. When I was doing the Chet Baker movie I was obsessed with playing the trumpet, and to my absolute shock I haven't picked the trumpet up since we wrapped. It was so much work. I thought I was going to keep playing the rest of my life, 'cause it was fun, it's just a lot of work. And it's a really unique job that exposes you to a lot.

I kill flies, I eat meat, you know, whatever.

My process differs ... my process for a Richard Linklater film is very different than a process for Training Day.

I love working on scripts. I love coming up with ideas about what people would dress like or talk like. I love all that.

Justice. There is only one thing for which a knight has no patience: injustice. Every true knight fights for human dignity at all times.

It's difficult to make any kind of action movie that might be unique or worth watching.

Right now the only people I can really fall in love with are people who don't really, truly want me around. Now why do I do that?

You are always in the right place at exactly the right time, and you always have been.

Arrogance is born of insecurity. Pride is different. It is born of dignity, self-worth, and self-respect. We all see the world through the prism of our identity. If our self-worth is low, it affects everything we do. The point of life is to contribute to others, but without a certain self-regard, it is sometimes difficult to make breakfast.

Emma Watson is my kids' favorite actor on the planet. They never took me more seriously than when I was working with her.

The drones are really interesting - how have the troops withdrawn from Afghanistan? Because we've upped the drone strikes and most of the country doesn't even really know what that means or who we're killing or ... it's such a new weapon that we don't know what the long term impacts of that kind of military action is going to be.

It's interesting to get older and realize that part of your job growing up in this profession is to help the next generation. More and more, with Boyhood and with Ellar Coltrane and with Emma [Watson], I start to see that role. There's no better way. Nobody wants advice, so you can't really give it. You just have to try to wish them well on their journey.

Have this Chet Baker movie coming out and in that situation, I went down the rabbit hole studying Chet Baker and being obsessed with the period and the music and the relationships and the dynamic, and everything, drug addiction. There was so much I wanted to get at to kind of get at the truth. With Regression, I was certainly in Alejandro's [Amenabar] hands.

I've always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don't care if it's in movies or theater or whatever - if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in.

Read. It makes you more intelligent. It's that simple. We all see the universe through the tiny keyhole of our own eyes, and every book is another keyhole from which you can gaze.

Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent.

Time is so much a part of what makes you close to people.

Well, there's a great Marlon Brando quote that to do something well you have to spiritually marry your director. You have to be making the same movie they are in that you have to try to help their imagination be better, and more full, and more fully realized, but you can't have a different imagination because then you end up - and you see this a lot in movies - where it feels like they were making five different films.

When you do 'Before Sunset,' you know while it's a limited audience, there was a very small group of people that love 'Before Sunrise.' You feel a certain pressure to make sure that you uphold a level of quality that has been a bar. You set a bar and you have to at least match it.

I don't know what has happened to movies, but lately every movie is at least 20 minutes too long. It used to be that if you were three hours long it was because it was epic - a movie about Gandhi; something with very important subject matters.

Pay attention: what you need to know is usually in front of you. There are no secrets, just things people choose not to notice.

I did one sci-fi movie. I did 'Gattaca.' I liked 'Gattaca' because that was always the kind of science fiction I really dug, the non-action oriented sci-fi.

Which wolf will win?...
whichever one you feed

I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.

Alejandro Amenabar is a different kind of director than I lot of the directors I've asked for. He really asks you to enter his dream as opposed to, you know, a guy like Sidney Lumet or something is going to ask you to create a character almost like a documentary. He wants you to make the people really real and he's going to capture it like a documentarian.

Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering. Other people, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, spouses, even your mother and I are not responsible for your happiness. Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best. Doing your best will bring happiness. Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task.

The biggest problem in my life is trying to be the kind of man that I want to be, the father that I want to be, and how to process the failure of my marriage.

The idea that a film is created in the editing room - it's only a certain kind of movie that's made in the editing room and it's not one that I really want to see.

Your development as a person should coincide with your development in all aspects of your life.

Like a dead branch falling from a tree, which them decomposes and nourishes the soil, your disappointments can transform into the elements of change and growth.

Expect nothing, and you will enjoy everything!

If someone asks me if I believe in God, I shake my head like I couldn't give a shit, but the truth is, I do. I just don't know what to do about it.

I believe in the healing restorative power of art and communication. And so that's probably my rule. But that doesn't apply to bedtimes. And stuff like that.

You know, I auditioned for 'Titanic.' Sometimes I muse on what would have happened. That would have been such a different life.

Directing is like putting together a collage.

We all see the world through the prism of our identity.

I think that as soon as you think of yourself as a famous person or anything like that, you're objectifying yourself in some weird way.

Everyone has to pay their child support, and no matter if you're a Hollywood actor or anyone else, it's always a little bit more than you want to pay.

If you covet fame, if you covet all the superficial accolades, you're gonna be miserable 'cause you're never going to get enough praise. If you covet contributing something substantive to movies, music, literature, then you won't be unhappy.

With practice, you build the road to accomplish your goals. Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don't save anything for the walk home.

It was never in my dreams to make my personal life anybody else's business.

The peregrine falcon is the swiftest, most adept animal I have ever seen. It is worth noting that, like many bird, the falcon's bones are hollow. Travel light.

It's interesting to work with Emma [Watson] so quickly after Harry Potter. When we shot this movie, it wasn't that long after Harry Potter was finished, and it's knowing that's a big transition in her life. She's a very talented young woman.

When an analogy is really singing, it's what you want it to be.

We live in a funny time. If you don't go corporate, you can't compete. You're relegated as irrelevant. People used to admire that.

I remember being a kid and sleeping over at my friend's house and staying up late and watching 'Nosferatu.' Vampire movies are supposed to be secret and bad. They should be rated R.

The thing that makes a great genre movie is one that's not just entertainment, not just horror or sci-fi or whatever. The ones I love are the genre pictures with some subversive message underlying it all.

One of the hardest things about my job is that there kind of is no one rulebook that applies to all situations.

Seeing the play ( A Lie of the Mind ) clearly is part of why I wanted to direct it. I see hope at the end of this play. People talk about how dark the play was, but I feel like, if you really look at the darkness, you're able to go through it, and you realize that you can handle dark moments in life and that everything will be all right.

Remember, a friend does not need you to impress him. A friend loves you because you are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. Beware of grand gestures; the real mettle of friendship is forged in life's daily workings.

Possessions can be, and most often are, a distraction from the real work of a knight's life. A lion doesn't own anything at all, yet we all know his power.

It's always a unique challenge when you're working with somebody where English is their second language.

People are conditioned to just you know, like, you know we're like little birdies going to the bird feeder you know, or the little cows going to the salt lick. We just like what we've seen before.

Pride. Never pretend you are not a knight of attempt to diminish yourself because you deem it will make others more comfortable. We show others the most respect by offering the best of ourselves.

The theater, for me, has always been a place where I'm free to be more creative, a place to sharpen my tools.

We all have this fantasy of finding our one true love who's going to be the perfect fit. It's just not a reality.

It is very difficult for any couple who are married if both people are ambitious. I don't know if it's just too hard to be married to a woman that wants to be a movie star.

There's only so often you're going to have an opportunity to contribute at a high level and that you should be grateful whenever one presents itself and not take it lightly.

I always felt that a marriage works best at a farm ... where you're together and everybody has clear-cut roles; they have chores, 'you take care of this' and you know. But it's hard.

If you don't give inspiration an opportunity, it will never arrive.

I don't think Emma Watson needs any advice. She's an incredibly smart young woman who knows what she wants out of life and she has some great parents.

How to make a scary movie human, take a movie like Sinister. How can I make that guy so real so that the scary elements of it are more scary and it functions as a genre movie - as the way it's supposed to, you want to hear a ghost story at midnight, that's a good one - but how do you fill it up with humanity inside, in staying true to the genre? You know? Does that make sense?

If you're not a real chameleon of an actor and if you're not one of those guys who can really shape-change themselves all the time, one of the ways to keep pushing yourself and keep changing is to be in different kinds of movies.

I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for.

I do not want you children to use my untimely death, or any setback that life may deliver, as an excuse not to take responsibility for yourselves.

I meet a lot of young people that want to go into acting because they think of what it will do for them. If that's the case, it can be a very, very painful profession. But if the kids want to do acting because they love it, and they want to give to it, then they can have a great life. It's really about as simple as how you look at it.

I learned that evening that rain falls equally on all things. Jealousy, fear, and anger are obstacles to a knight's first goal: a clear mind.

Now I have a theory that if a woman wants to keep a man she only needs to say two things: She believes in him and he's got a big a cock. That's all it takes. It doesn't even have to be true.

Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would.

I like [that] there's a certain inherent drama to those jobs that is exciting to tell stories about and it's still real life. I'm a little less interested in the current fad of being obsessed with superheroes and things that are so out of the box.

One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.

If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.

Look, I have no idea what's going on," I said, catching my breath. "I don't like myself either. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to tell you to fuck off. But you gotta understand, everything in my life feels different. I just want so badly to know if you like me. And I know how asinine that sounds. If you want me to leave you alone, I will, but sometimes ... sometimes you meet somebody and you know that whatever you did before, whatever your life was before, it must have been right ... nothing could've been too bad or gone too far wrong because it led you to this person. You're that person. Do you want me to go away?

One of the things I can do is to try to put myself in different kinds of movies and that kind of subtly changes my work. By the time my obituary is written, I want there to be a great western and a great comedy.

Sometimes people, their creative drive comes from an energy to try to heal themselves.

Right now, if you're interested in being a dramatic actor, they're not making that many just regular dramas. Movies have to have some other thing going on.

Every time he opens his mouth I have absolutely no idea what he's gonna say. He's the most honest person I've ever met. He's a quick study and rarely needs to make the same mistake twice. He really tries to learn, and does, and he makes me laugh, and the world's generally a lighter place when he's in my sight.

The only thing I can point to of why I survived is I have a family that loves me and never wanted any money from me.

Stand like you deserve to be here

In New York, you've got Donald Trump, Woody Allen, a crack addict and a regular Joe, and they're all on the same subway car.

I'm magically delicious.

And the best films feel like a fist punching you in the solar plexus and all elements of the filmmaking process - the acting, the design, the cinematography, the music, is all working to one end.

A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare.

I have totally hitched my wagon to the horse of storytelling, and the idea that none of us know why we're born, or why we're gonna die, or what we're planted here, or what's on the other side of the galaxy, or when time began, or when time end. The whole nature of reality is pretty up for grabs, really.

I was being taken around by a press agent at the Venice Film Festival at age 18. Was it fun? Sure. But it was a dangerous path to be walking on as far as having a substantive life. Because the casualty rate at the Venice Film Festival for 18-year-olds? High.

All that stuff with the tabloids is a kind of luxury tax I pay for all the good things I do in my life.

You can't keep wanting to be 20 years old. Everybody knows that, but what's in the next room?

I started acting when I was 13 years old and I feel like I really admire actors who are these kind of amazing shape-changing people, that they almost can turn themselves into other people.

I've had a lot of experience in independent film, and about how to choose. You've got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks, and where you cut and what you don't cut.

The more kind of head trippy sci-fi. I always like that. I was a big 'Twilight Zone' freak.

If you can channel the best part of you that is bigger than yourself, where it's not about your ego and not about getting ahead, then you can have fun and you aren't jealous of others. You see other people's talent as another branch of your own. You can keep it rooted in joy. Life is long and there are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. The point of it all is to learn.

Success isn't measured by what you achieve, it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.

In your mid-twenties, the paint is still wet on who you are.

The girls who like me aren't the ones I like. Or, if I do and they want to commit, I suddenly need tons of time with my friends.

When you start becoming really successful, the demons start to tempt you - the demons of vanity and self importance, drug abuse, the feelings of fraudulence. But, it's also a thrill. That's what I found weird.

It is quite rare to find people who are really dedicated to a level of excellence. Most of us are really quite lazy most of the time.

If you study the history of mankind, it seems to be a history of violence. Certainly the history of art, whether you look at paintings or movies or plays or whatever, is just a litany of murder and death.

The thing that really breeds career longevity in this profession is doing good work. You can make $20 million a movie, but does that mean you'll still have a job when you're 60? It's a profession that eats people up and wants constant turnaround, so you have to dedicate yourself to learning and making the most of whatever gift you may have.